


(Dear) and so unsure

by a_verysmallviolet



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Age Difference, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Older Man/Younger Woman, Suicidal Thoughts, brief mention of ableism, brief mention of amputation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2043699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_verysmallviolet/pseuds/a_verysmallviolet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tarrlok doesn't know what he thinks the first time he answers the door and finds Korra standing there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Dear) and so unsure

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Beauty and the Beast's "Something There."

Sensation is too sharp. The linen sheets under him, rubbing and chafing; the fiercely dull ache behind his eyes whenever he looks at something too long; the air that drags salt, broken glass, _fire_ over his skin. The drafts that sometimes blow over his bare scalp, and send chills racing down his spine.

On days when he has the energy Tarrlok frets about this, until he almost laughs at the inanity of it. He lost his hand and probably his eye as well (he’s crippled, not stupid; he’s seen the grave looks and shakings of heads when they think he’s asleep), and he’s worrying about his hair. He can’t help it though. Never has he had more than a few centimeters cut at a time, and now his whole head is shorn. In place of the barely-there silken slide of hair on his pillow, there is a stiff rustle as the dark fuzz rubs against the material. It becomes his equivalent of prodding a bruise to see if it still hurts: rubbing his cheek against the pillow like a cat, and wishing he had his hair back.

He isn’t the only one. Whenever she comes to visit, Korra stares a heartbeat too long. Her eyes take the obligatory scan over his bandaged face and abruptly ending arm, but they always linger last on the fine dark stubble growing in.

“I’m sorry about your hair,” she says one day, during her (third? fifth? ninth?) visit. Tarrlok thinks of all the snappy ways he could reply; his brain is working enough to be sarcastic today, thank the spirits, and it doesn’t hurt quite as much to speak anymore.

“I’m sorry too,” he says.

-

By the time he is discharged from the hospital, Tarrlok’s hair has grown back enough that his scalp no longer shows through. His uncovered face still draws stares, but from the back he looks quiet, anonymous, and unremarkable.

He still doesn’t like it.

He gets a job as a law clerk, terrorizes his assistants, snipes at Lin and Tenzin when they visit the courthouse, and ignores reporters. At home he tries to rescue his plants, for the most part successfully, and coaxes his fish to learn to eat from his hand again. When he wakes at night from dreams of dark water and bright flame, he makes himself limeflower tea and sips it with closed eyes, willing his heart to slow. Often he sits up until the morning light paints red across the back of his eyelids.

He doesn’t know what he thinks the first time he answers the door and finds Korra standing there. He doesn’t know what to think, or say, so Tarrlok just stares blankly at her until she fidgets and drops her gaze to her shoes.

“So. Hey.”

“Hello.”

“Um…” Korra shifts her weight to stand briefly on one leg. Her eyes flick up to his burned face, then drop to his chest. “How are you doing?”

“Well enough.”

He starts to cross his arms, remembers midway, and settles for tucking his left arm behind his back. Korra notices, of course. After an awkward moment, she apparently decides against saying anything and stuffs her own hands into her pockets, looking down at her feet. The sight of her discomfort restores some of his equilibrium, and he is tempted to keep baiting her. But no. That would be discourteous.

“Are you going to keep taking up space on my doorstep, or are you going to come in for tea?”

Her blue gaze lifts suddenly to his, and Tarrlok feels again disconcertion at seeing summer-sea eyes instead of pale gray in a face that is otherwise so much like _his_. “You’re serious?”

“Considering I’m asking you…yes.”

He makes sure to drawl his words out, cool and mocking as glass in winter, and Korra flushes angrily before she steps into the foyer. Good. She may be the Avatar and he may be the object of a pity visit, but he refuses to play with sheathed claws.

He does make her tea, raising his eyebrows at the sharp-scented green she picks out but refraining from comment. It’s thick and slightly bitter on the tongue, but bracing, and he sips it slowly to keep from burning his mouth. Korra seems determined to match him sip for sip, even though her mouth had twisted at the bitterness or the heat or both. Tarrlok doesn’t bother to hide the way he smiles down at his tea. This was a green tea and ginseng mix from the most exclusive shop in the city; naturally it is stronger than the insipid brew they serve on Air Temple Island. He takes a deep breath, the fragrant steam curling around his face, and wraps his fingers around the heated cup.

“The white bags in the tea box,” Korra says suddenly. “The ones with the character for peace. What are they?”

Tarrlok’s shoulders stiffen. Of course she would notice, clever sharp-eyed brat. No, not sharp-eyed. Half the box was filled with the limeflower sachets; how could she not notice? Idiot. _Idiot_. But he keeps his voice cool.

“Limeflower tea. For ease of sleep.” He pauses. “And nightmares.”

He looks down at his tea, but not quickly enough to escape the sudden pity that flits across her face. There is nothing to pity, Tarrlok wants to tell her. These cerulean teacups, the calligraphy on the walls, this beautiful house with the dusky blue hangings and scent of water in every room: he earned it. All of this is his. There is nothing to pity.

There is everything to pity, the snide voice in the back of his head says. After all, he couldn’t even self-destruct properly.

Tarrlok pushes his chair back and stands abruptly.

“There’s something I want to show you,” he says. Even to his own ears his voice sounds jerky and harsh. “Will you come?”

Korra blinks up at him, owl-eyed with surprise. Then she nods and rises from the table.

He leads her to a room overlooking his small garden and the harbor beyond, and specifically to a row of long bookshelves. Korra looks at him quizzically, her brow furrowed, but then she takes a closer look at the titles. With a gasp, she steps closer, then takes a book off the shelf without asking and starts flipping through it.

“You have a copy of Minuk’s _Silver Wave_?” she asks without looking up.

“Obviously.” Tarrlok crosses his arms, holding his right elbow in his left palm, and chews the inside of his cheek as he watches her skim through the book with rapturous eyes. He knows what she will ask before she does.

“Can I borrow this?”

“You can keep it, and any of the other waterbending books you like.”

Korra looks up at him quickly. He shrugs. “It’s not like I have much use for them.”

Korra’s face falls, just a little, and she returns to _Silver Wave_ with a line between her brows. Tarrlok turns so that the weak winter sun can fall on his good side and stares out at the harbor. He dreamed again last night. He had heard the sea running up to his bed and whispering to him, words and voices he couldn’t quite make out. The water had been white as frost but thick as blood, and red dots splattered it like embers on snow.

“Will you teach me?” Korra asks suddenly. Tarrlok turns away from the window and lifts an eyebrow at her. Half unconsciously he rubs his arm, as though to ward off a chill. 

“I still practice my waterbending, but there aren’t many waterbenders who can match me, much less teach me.” She says it matter-of-factly, with no trace of arrogance, keeping her eyes on the open book. “These techniques look good. I think I can get most of them, but I’d like to have a teacher to keep an eye out for me and work out the rough spots.”

For a moment Tarrlok is tempted. Could he stand to watch hours of waterbending, track the water with only his sight and a phantom memory of _more_? He thinks he could. Not for just anyone; having to watch even merely decent skill would make him scream with frustration. But he’s seen Korra bend. She has talent and strength, even control. With some refinement she could become a master. And wouldn’t it – almost – be like waterbending again, to teach the Avatar? Wouldn’t it be easy, as he shapes the movements of a kata for her to follow, to pretend that it’s him making the water flow and shift from ice to liquid to silver dancing beauty in the sun?

He wants to say yes. The answer sits on his tongue.

Absently, as he considers, his fingers brush against a porcelain vase. At the ice-smooth touch Tarrlok remembers, and the memory is like snow down his spine. Fool. Oh, endless fool. He’s seen this before. The former bender, guiding his students through stance after stance with nothing more than words and sight, molding them against all the odds into masters. It _is_ possible to teach bending as an ex-bender. Shouldn’t he know? He was taught by one, and look what a perfect disciple he became.

Korra is still waiting for his answer.

“No,” he says.

-

She still comes back the week after. He still doesn’t know what to say.

He makes her tea.

-

Slowly, day by day, his hair grows back, just long enough for it to start falling in his eye, then long enough for him to wind fine strands around his finger. Not quite enough length to actually do anything yet, but it’s progress. 

Korra keeps coming to visit. Between them they try every flavor of tea Kang’s has to offer.

He wakes one morning to sunlight streaming through the window, and realizes that he has slept the whole night through.

-

Finally, _finally_ his hair is long enough to tie a proper wolf tail. He keeps it to one, and tied low; three wolf tails tied high belong to Korra, or to _him_. 

The minute Korra sees it she bursts out laughing.

“Spirits,” she gasps. “You’re trying so hard. You really want your hair back, don’t you?”

Tarrlok is miffed at this. True, his hair only reaches a few centimeters past his ears, but that is quite long enough. Tui and La be praised, it grew in evenly. These past months he has resolutely refused to imagine having it only grow on the left side of his head and being forced to shave his head. Now that the danger has been averted, he allows himself to think of it, and the prospect is horrifying indeed.

Korra follows him into the kitchen, her cheeks glowing with cold and laughter. Without prompting, she sets out bowls, napkins, and chopsticks, leaving Tarrlok free to fuss over the bubbling pot on the stove. These visits have never quite lagged since that first disastrous one. Korra doesn’t seem to distinguish between day and night visits, but they never meet elsewhere, so he assumes she is doing the smart thing and keeping this – relationship, for lack of a better word – quiet. Silently, he approves. He has no wish to change.

Korra never talks about the past when she visits. Instead she talks about politics, her lessons with Tenzin, her struggles with the vines, and her absolute, virulent hatred of Raiko, while he looks sympathetic for as long as possible and then starts offering advice. He’s not much help with spirits, but he didn’t become the youngest councilman in history by being only a tolerably skilled politician. Under his tutelage, Tarrlok is gratified to note that her press conferences have started to grow away from being debacles. As for her relationship with the president…well. When he opened the newspaper and saw the word-by-word speech in which she deftly turned all blame back on Raiko, he felt as proud as though he’d written it himself. Well...almost as proud. Let’s not get too far ahead of things.

So Korra talks about her problems, and he tells her how to solve them, and, predictably, she argues about his advice. Why an eighteen-year-old thinks she knows more than he does about politics, he has no idea, but she does, and what she lacks in oratory skills she makes up for in stubbornness. Actually they argue a lot: about immigration, economic inequality, unions, integration of different nationalities, bender and non-bender tensions, everything. Tarrlok had been horrified to find that she tended to take Tenzin’s word as infallible on these issues.

“By the scales on La’s back,” he had said. “I don’t care if he lives in a recreation of the Air Nomads; that’s his choice. _You_ have to educate yourself. This is _your_ city.”

Korra had scowled at him and charged on with her position on anti-triad programs, apparently waving off his words completely. Since then, though, her arguments have slowly grown more educated. Passion still rings clear in every syllable, but now she demonstrates intelligence as well, instead of merely leaving him to guess at it. 

Having Korra as an opponent is like mental sparring. The give and take of their debates, the way she throws herself whole-heartedly into each topic they discuss: these energize Tarrlok, make him feel alive as nothing else has since the revolution. Most of the time she remains misguided, of course, but not hopelessly so. If only she weren’t so spirits-cursed stubborn.

More than once their tea has cooled while they discuss things (we’re debating, he insists, like civilized people. Give it up, Tarrlok, she retorts. We’re arguing, and you’re still wrong). Korra tried reheating the tea once, but then they got sidetracked by regulation of opium, and he went in search of his law texts to prove his point, and Korra distracted him by continuing to _debate_ him while he hunts for legislation, and they only realize the sun has set when they have to strain to see each other’s faces.

Korra starts to apologize, but her stomach growls. Loudly. She claps her hands to her mouth in mortification.

“Never mind,” Tarrlok says. “You may as well stay to dinner now.”

“But – “

He points a rolled-up scroll at her.

“If you go back to Air Temple Island, you’ll talk to Tenzin, and your head will be full of his rubbish and empty of your own arguments by the time you come back here. Then you’re going to annoy me, and we’ll have to have this whole argument _again_.”

Korra’s mouth twitches.

“Whereas if I stay?”

“Then we can finish it now and argue about something else next time.” He spreads his arms. “Plus you get to try my cooking.”

“Is that supposed to persuade me?”

“ _Korra_.”

She ends up staying, looking over his shoulder while he makes Northern-style steamed salmon with wild rice on the side, and helps him wash up afterwards. Privately Tarrlok is thrilled when she scrapes her plate clean. He knew it would happen, but he is thrilled nonetheless.

It’s the first time she stays to dinner, but it isn’t the last. More and more often their tea sessions stretch into the evening, with golden dots lighting up one by one in the distance while the two of them talk. Typically arguments before dinner, the conversation grows lazy and comfortable afterwards. 

For the first time in many years he is not speaking to charm or manipulate. Rather, it’s all just _talking_ : light-hearted, simple, even teasing at times. It embarrasses him sometimes to recall how juvenile their discussions had been, but they are… he hates to use the word, but their conversations are fun. Not amusing, or diverting, but fun. To his surprise, Tarrlok discovers that he likes to laugh with Korra, and that he likes to make her laugh.

Is this what it’s like, to have a friend? he wonders once. Someone who you’re not trying to impress, someone who you watch to see if they liked your story instead of waiting to catch any secrets they let slip. Is this what friends do?

At first he sits with his face in shadow and tries to limit his hand gestures. But Korra never stares, never keeps her eyes fixed on the wall behind his head like the sight of him repulses her. She perches on his chairs instead, ruins his rugs, drinks his tea, jokes, laughs, washes the dishes with him and brushes elbows casually, as if there is nothing at all to her being here. And, after so many months, Tarrlok starts to believe her.

He doesn’t pretend to know how it came to this, how an indistinct figure seen through a haze of painkillers and lingering trauma led to the Avatar sitting across from him and nonchalantly licking her fingers. All he knows is that, somehow, it means something to him. She means something to him.

Today she is quiet over the tray of small desserts that finishes their meal. Tapping an almond between her fingers, she looks pensive, almost thoughtful, as she steals glances at him every so often. Tarrlok pretends to ignore the looks, instead taking methodical bites of a small fig. The taste is almost shockingly sugary, enough that his jaw aches as he sets the fig stalk down on his plate. He glances up, and their gazes cross.

Korra sits up with decision and flicks the almond back onto the china plate.

“Do you want to go to dinner with me?” she asks.

He doesn’t allow himself to change expression as he wipes his fingers clean on a napkin. “We just had dinner.” 

“No,” she says. “I mean, _dinner_. Outside.”

He raises his eyebrows. “People will talk.”

“People always talk.” She shrugs and puts her elbows on the table, resting her chin on her hands. “So, you in?”

Tarrlok considers a moment. Then he shrugs too.

“All right. When and where?”

Korra’s eyes light up, and a warm, broad smile unfurls across her face. After a brief pause, Tarrlok smiles back. When her own smile widens in return, it takes him a moment to remember to deny the candle-flame of warmth that flares to life.

-

He’s worked out a system for braids now, his long fingers sorting deftly through the shoulder blade-length strands while his prosthetic holds them in place. The first day Tarrlok leaves the house with the silver ornaments back in place, he actually has a spring in his step. He feels lighthearted enough at day's end to drop off some papers for Tenzin personally, rather than sending an aide. The day is warm and his time is his own, so why not?

(As for _why_ , that may have something to do with the radio report that the Avatar has returned from the Fire Nation, and is known to visit her mentor often. It may. It may not. He denies all such accusations.)

Tenzin’s children are much the same: a blur of red and gold on the air, and a shriek of “Ponytail man is back!” as he enters the courtyard. Tenzin, too, is unchanged, with his stiff thanks for the papers not quite able to mask his bewilderment. Besides the airbending family, Tarrlok sees no one but Air Acolytes while there.

Well, of course, he tells himself sourly as he descends the steps. Just because the Avatar lives at Air Temple Island doesn’t mean she _lives_ here. Probably Korra is out with her oversized dog or her friends. Tarrlok considers kicking a pebble across the courtyard, but decides he’s made enough of a spectacle of himself. Idiot puppy. Self-satisfied fool. Stupid – 

“Tarrlok!”

Korra runs lightly down a hallway toward him. The smell of the sea, bracing and alive, comes blowing along with her. At the sound of her voice Tarrlok stops in the middle of the courtyard, inwardly thankful for the politician’s training that hides the sudden, swooping joy of Korra running to meet him behind courteous eyes and a friendly smile.

Korra has no such training, and if she did, she would likely not use it. Her welcoming smile is broad and genuine, as easily read as any of her other expressions. He can tell the instant she notices his hair. For a moment her smile falters in surprise, and then is eclipsed by a beaming look that is better than words.

“Turn around,” she orders, delight still shining in her eyes. “I want to see.”

“I’d feel silly,” Tarrlok informs her, but complies anyway, the click of beads making him want to smile, insanely, like a giddy child. He feels a Tribesman now, the way no amount of blue fabric or murmured prayers could make him.

There is delight, also, in the feel of her fingertips gentle on his braids, and her light touch against his back. It is summer again (and again, the latest of many since the day he first entered Tenzin’s dining room and felt shocked familiarity ram into his gut); it is summer, and yet suddenly he is trembling.

Korra’s breath plumes warm on his nape.

“Turn around,” she says softly.

Tarrlok turns and faces her, his hand open and loose at his side. Wordlessly Korra raises her hands to cup his face, and, spirits, if she didn’t know before, she knows now the way he trembles at her touch. On the left side of his face he can feel her palm, warm and dry; on the right side, he feels nothing. But when she kisses him, he feels everything.

He is the one to pull away first. With the memory of her lips on his, fleeting and warm as sunshine, Tarrlok cannot bear to look her in the eye. He is…what is he to say? He is twenty years older, a half-blind cripple, a disgraced councilman, blood kin to a criminal and a terrorist….

Korra sets her finger against his lips before he can say a word. Her eyes are wide and dark as they search his, her skin glowing with health in the summer sunlight. Beautiful, he thinks helplessly. Beautiful, and young as the morning.

Her full mouth quirks, as though she can read his thoughts. Gently, so gently, she strokes his left cheek. At her touch again Tarrlok goes still, but his blood roars in his ears like the tide rushing into shore, swirling and eddying, dragging down mountains.

All this time they have not looked away from each other. Then suddenly, without saying a word, he yields. 

Korra takes him by the hand and leads him to her room.

There is one more advantage to braids over wolf tails. When Korra’s hands fist in his hair, tugging his head back and baring his throat and shoulders to her kisses, they remain whole.

Like him, Tarrlok thinks in the brief moment before he is lost in their bare legs intertwining and her hurried breaths beside his ear. Like this. He is whole.

-

His hair is iron-gray now, brittle but still long enough to braid. The beads click together softly as he walks, and on windy days they start a faint music like bone windchimes on the tundra. On days like that Korra teases him, says he sounds like a walking music box, and Tarrlok dips his head with a smile and says nothing.

Korra has never changed her hairstyle. Oh, for a ball or gala she’ll try the hair loops or a low bun at her nape (never both at the same time, and for this he is grateful). She’ll wear the loops and look like a queen, and the moment they get home, she tugs at pins and braids until her hair fluffs out in soft masses around her shoulders. The day after it is back in the wolf tails, strict and military, both nodding to tradition and bucking it in the most flagrant way. 

It is an odd mixture: the warrior’s tails whipping behind her as she strides rapidly along, the blue stone glinting dully at her throat with every motion of her head and shoulders. Perhaps the North forgave her it as a girl; as a woman, there is nothing more to forgive. And she _is_ a woman now. Korra still bounds like a teenager, still loves and laughs as recklessly as the seventeen-year-old she was, but her hips are rounded and full now, and there are fine lines stemming from the corners of her lips and eyes. It seems to him that he’s watched each of those lines etch itself over the years: the sun beating down as she charges ahead without heed for hat or balm, worry as she paces and thinks aloud on the latest crisis with spirits or politics, giddy laughter as she tips her head back and howls in mirth.

It is an odd mixture, but then they are an odd couple. The tall woman walking with her hand tucked into the elbow of a taller man, his other sleeve pinned to the shoulder and half his face burned away; the hero and the villain walking as close as lovers, as comfortably as friends. 

Tarrlok takes a deep breath of the linden-scented air, warmly and quietly conscious of Korra matching each of his steps, and of her fingers curled in the crook of his elbow. The sun is warm, the air is alive with a fountain’s rippling, and all is peace. This is his life. This is good. He is well content.

Korra nudges his arm, and he glances down at her.

“Do you want to get some bubble tea?”

Tarrlok considers. He doesn’t terribly like bubble tea, but it’s not bad. And Korra enjoys it, for some odd reason, trying to suck the tapioca pearls up with her straw and snorting with laughter when she inadvertently inhales one. He has enough yuan in his pocket to buy steamed buns along with their drinks: char siu pork for her, lotus seed for him. The day is warm enough to eat outside, but cool enough that a warm bun in hand and stomach will comfort. There are worse things to do.

Korra is still waiting for his answer.

“Yes,” he says.


End file.
